Corniest Dub Lines

[Dark Vegeta-Sama]

That one was actually in the original Japanese version. It was one of the very few times in which a dub line was accurately translated from the Japanese script during seasons 1 and 2.

Sorry to say this but, no such line was EVER uttered in the Japanese version. That was strictly from the Saban/Ocean dub... though I'm not sure if FUNi re-used it in the re-dub (nor do I care enough to check). But saying that it's from the original Japanese script is flat out incorrect.

Okay, my mistake, I had recently read through the old DBZ Uncensored site again and misunderstood what Chris Psaros had said in regards to that line of dialogue:

"By the way, the FUNimation dialogue writers got one right for once. This was when Vegeta says to Nappa: "Remind me to look into having you de-wormed again." Oh man, I was howling."

Yeah, I guess he just liked it, not that it was an accurate translation. My bad.

Even so, I fucking love that line.

[The Time Traveller]

That one was actually in the original Japanese version. It was one of the very few times in which a dub line was accurately translated from the Japanese script during seasons 1 and 2.

Sorry to say this but, no such line was EVER uttered in the Japanese version. That was strictly from the Saban/Ocean dub... though I'm not sure if FUNi re-used it in the re-dub (nor do I care enough to check). But saying that it's from the original Japanese script is flat out incorrect.

Okay, my mistake, I had recently read through the old DBZ Uncensored site again and misunderstood what Chris Psaros had said in regards to that line of dialogue:

"By the way, the FUNimation dialogue writers got one right for once. This was when Vegeta says to Nappa: "Remind me to look into having you de-wormed again." Oh man, I was howling."

Yeah, I guess he just liked it, not that it was an accurate translation. My bad.

Even so, I fucking love that line.

It makes me think of Nappa scooting his ass around a wasteland... poor pathetic Nappa.

[JulieYBM]

Well, the thing is it's still called writing when you have to rework the dialogue to sound both accurate, matching the flaps, and natural.

Oh I certainly hear you... the Akira re-dub and the vast majority of YYH are prime examples of that being done beautifully. Certain Streamline dubs also did this exceedingly well (some of them at least; their record was certainly spotty in this regard).

Except... that's not what was done for DBZ at all. They kinda just pulled dialogue, character beats, and whole plot points completely out of their asses as they went along, and it plainly shows. At the end of the day, you have to use the original scripts as a base, and they clearly didn't.

Plenty of dubs--from what I hear--are so word-for-word the acting suffers: case in point YGO and SK uncut.

ADV's re-dub of Birth managed to be 90% word for word accurate and the acting didn't suffer one iota. So the “having one's cake and eating it too” approach IS certainly possible.

Not to mention the bulk of Z was written before dubbing became a serious business.

In the mainstream TV market at least. Plenty of anime made for the cult video market were slowly beginning to have some excellent dubs as far back as the late 80’s/early 90’s (not a tremendously great deal many mind you, but there were still some definite standouts).

Either way though, crap is still crap, and the fact that every other chopped for mainstream TV anime wasn’t putting forth any sort of effort for quality on their part isn’t a particularly compelling excuse for FUNimation following their lead. The only way to up the bar for any sort of industry with a lackluster history is for somebody to be the first one to make that initial step towards improvement.

FUNi shouldn’t be given any sort of a free pass for following the crowd with DBZ any more than any other of the countless hatchet job dubs from that era.

Not that I disagree, but FUNimation was recording the show for five episodes a week and working twelve hour days--which is probably why the acting may or may not have suffered--and whatever 'Americanization' in the scripts carried over to the uncut version probably because they were too busy to write alternate dialogue and then record it, at least that's my reasoning for the less than great dub.

Seeing it from their perspective, they had something great going for them, so why change? Sadly, this has left me without my dream dub with accurate dialogue. Ah well, there's always dub with subtitles on and the Manga...

[Rocketman]

It makes me think of Nappa scooting his ass around a wasteland... poor pathetic Nappa.

N: "Hey Vegeta"
V: "What?"
N: "My butt itches, Vegeta."
V: *eye twitches*

[Gozar]

I disagree...Given the time when it started (1996) I don't believe DBZ would have been as successful if they didn't do some of that Saturday Morning Cartoon stuff. I believe that DBZ & Pokemon are the ones that opened the floodgates for Anime in America. Without DBZ being a huge commercial success, I think the American Anime market would be much different right now.

This line of excuses is used by Funi themselves in various interviews from the period and is just as ridiculous now as it was then. DBZ succeeded in spite of the changes because of the strength of the core material, not because of their moronic alterations.

What I'm trying to get at is, if they didn't make the changes, I doubt Toonami would have picked it up. It was Toonami's run that made DBZ so mainstream. I don't think Toonami would have went for it if not for corny jokes and Kaio's Puns (It's make little kids have to think...OHZ NOEZ!!!)

[Raki]

I disagree...Given the time when it started (1996) I don't believe DBZ would have been as successful if they didn't do some of that Saturday Morning Cartoon stuff. I believe that DBZ & Pokemon are the ones that opened the floodgates for Anime in America. Without DBZ being a huge commercial success, I think the American Anime market would be much different right now.

This line of excuses is used by Funi themselves in various interviews from the period and is just as ridiculous now as it was then. DBZ succeeded in spite of the changes because of the strength of the core material, not because of their moronic alterations.

What I'm trying to get at is, if they didn't make the changes, I doubt Toonami would have picked it up. It was Toonami's run that made DBZ so mainstream. I don't think Toonami would have went for it if not for corny jokes and Kaio's Puns (It's make little kids have to think...OHZ NOEZ!!!)

Did Gundam Wing have corny jokes and lame one-liners? Toonami picked it up because of the visuals and the extreme success the show had across the globe. Do you think CN would have NOT gotten DBZ only to have another network pick it up? Hell no.

[Gozar]

This line of excuses is used by Funi themselves in various interviews from the period and is just as ridiculous now as it was then. DBZ succeeded in spite of the changes because of the strength of the core material, not because of their moronic alterations.

What I'm trying to get at is, if they didn't make the changes, I doubt Toonami would have picked it up. It was Toonami's run that made DBZ so mainstream. I don't think Toonami would have went for it if not for corny jokes and Kaio's Puns (It's make little kids have to think...OHZ NOEZ!!!)

Did Gundam Wing have corny jokes and lame one-liners? Toonami picked it up because of the visuals and the extreme success the show had across the globe. Do you think CN would have NOT gotten DBZ only to have another network pick it up? Hell no.

Didn't Gundam come a few years after DBZ? You know once Anime was starting to pick up a bit of steam.

[Raki]

What I'm trying to get at is, if they didn't make the changes, I doubt Toonami would have picked it up. It was Toonami's run that made DBZ so mainstream. I don't think Toonami would have went for it if not for corny jokes and Kaio's Puns (It's make little kids have to think...OHZ NOEZ!!!)

Did Gundam Wing have corny jokes and lame one-liners? Toonami picked it up because of the visuals and the extreme success the show had across the globe. Do you think CN would have NOT gotten DBZ only to have another network pick it up? Hell no.

Didn't Gundam come a few years after DBZ? You know once Anime was starting to pick up a bit of steam.

Like in 2000, didn't DBZ premier in 98 or 99 on CN?

1000th post

[SSj_Rambo]

Did Gundam Wing have corny jokes and lame one-liners? Toonami picked it up because of the visuals and the extreme success the show had across the globe. Do you think CN would have NOT gotten DBZ only to have another network pick it up? Hell no.

Didn't Gundam come a few years after DBZ? You know once Anime was starting to pick up a bit of steam.

Like in 2000, didn't DBZ premier in 98 or 99 on CN?

Dragonball Z premiered on Cartoon Network in August 1998, and Gundam premiered on Cartoon Network on March 6, 2000 (exactly the third Japanese anime to appear on Cartoon Network after Dragonball).

[MajinVejitaXV]

Like in 2000, didn't DBZ premier in 98 or 99 on CN?

It came on when I was a sophomore in high school, so '99-'00. Besides, Cartoon Network was showing things like Batman: TAS and so forth that were decidedly darker in tone than DBZ.

Cartoon Network would have shown DragonBall Z, corny jokes or no. And people would have watched it, corny jokes or no. It rests fully on FUNimation as to why the show was handled as it was.

-Corey

[Vekurotto]

Didn't Gundam come a few years after DBZ? You know once Anime was starting to pick up a bit of steam.

Yeah Raki and others have pointed out already Gundam Wing aired, and finished, it's first run and second runs months before the episodes from "Seasons Four-Six" were aired which were later in September of that year. GW also had a complicated, and also overtly hypocritical, script but that didn't stop kids from watching. And for the record Wing didn't have any corny lines or one liners. It was a serious well written script. I may not like the series but there's nothing wrong with the script or the dub compared to the DB dubs.

Gundam Wing has always been seen as more of the pusher for what anime is today over Funi's version of Dragon Ball Z, even though Funi's DBZ is too but in my opinion only negatively. But GW showed that you can have the original music, the original script with no alterations, Japanese names/title cards/insert music on American TV and people wouldn't give a shit because they're watching a 'great' (in quotations because it's not really a great show) show that was different from the rest because it's not treating the viewer like how many other televised cartoons anime series were and actually treating you as if you had a brain and could think outside of the box. Did Funi realize that, yes that's why when Yu Yu Hakusho, Blue Gender, and Fruit's Basket came out the next year the dubs of those series became the way they were. Did they realize that with Dragon Ball/Z/GT while they aired or were dubbed, no. A little bit with Dragon Ball (even though it's questionable), definitely not with Z, and GT was good but the original music should have been used which the season sets will fix.

[MajinVejitaXV]

Dragonball Z premiered on Cartoon Network in August 1998, and Gundam premiered on Cartoon Network on March 6, 2000 (exactly the third Japanese anime to appear on Cartoon Network after Dragonball).

Well, yeah. They re-ran Ocean's episodes for about a year, but the "FUNimation Season 3" dub didn't begin until it premiered on 9/13/99 with "Ginyu Assault."

-Corey

[JulieYBM]

Were it not too big a hassle I'm sure they'd like to redub the series with an accurate, the voice actors I mean.

[Super Sonic]

Didn't Gundam come a few years after DBZ? You know once Anime was starting to pick up a bit of steam.

Like in 2000, didn't DBZ premier in 98 or 99 on CN?

Dragonball Z premiered on Cartoon Network in August 1998, and Gundam premiered on Cartoon Network on March 6, 2000 (exactly the third Japanese anime to appear on Cartoon Network after Dragonball).

It wasn't the third anime. Speed Racer and Voltron came on that network before DBZ did.

[Vekurotto]

It wasn't the third anime. Speed Racer and Voltron came on that network before DBZ did.

Yeah but in technicality those series are just adaptions of anime posing as American creations rather than anime that actually weren't afraid to say they were anime created by non-Americans. Even Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon were, admittingly, Japanese by DiC and Funi.

Were it not too big a hassle I'm sure they'd like to redub the series with an accurate, the voice actors I mean.

OK this may be my opinion but here goes. I think the actors at Funi, right now in 2008, are pretty decent so with that said yes if they went back and redubbed the series as if it were anime, like they do with One Piece. Then we'd have a great series dubbed and subbed but guess what? That's just not going to happen.

Pretty much this. The series is over Funi has already put out 6 seasons worth of unredubbed and 're'dubbed Dragon Ball Z that still isn't anywhere in Funi's capable dubbing range. What that has shown me is that they are "happy" with their Saturday morning superhero show that they've made and that they would like to keep it that way. They also can't get back as many people namely Schemmel unless they redub Goku's voice entirely but guess what? Dub fans would not allow that. They'd do what should have happen with the season sets and probably bomb Funimation for committing religious heresy.

So pretty much no they won't redub Dragon Ball or Z properly. The damage has been done and if they really wanted to do it then they would have years and years ago when I was 11.

[Gozar]

They'd do what should have happen with the season sets and probably bomb Funimation for committing religious heresy.

I know I would

But back on the subject of airing DBZ on Toonami...I'm not so sure Toonami would have been as willing to air it without the Saturday Morning Cartoon-esque things. Though I have no desire to continue this debate because there's no way I could prove it either way...Only the head of Toonami knows. I find it fruitless to continue going back and forth with "Yes they would" "No they wouldn't" with no real basis.

[JulieYBM]

That's sort of why I said "Were not it a hassle..."

[Captain Awesome]

Regardless of whether or not they would, it isn't a justification for FUNimation's actions.

The show was always going to be successful, that was proven before it even made it to the United States.

[MajinVejitaXV]

But back on the subject of airing DBZ on Toonami...I'm not so sure Toonami would have been as willing to air it without the Saturday Morning Cartoon-esque things. Though I have no desire to continue this debate because there's no way I could prove it either way...Only the head of Toonami knows. I find it fruitless to continue going back and forth with "Yes they would" "No they wouldn't" with no real basis.

Err, but the rest of their lineup at the time is plenty of proof, or so I believe, but whatever.

-Corey

[Super Sonic]

Also sometimes just because you go back and make things more accurate, may not always mean big things economically. For example, let's say that they redid Voltron and made it more accurate to Go-Lion. Wouldn't be so great because people who buy Voltron dvds do so for nostalgia, and wouldn't want to see it changed from what they saw 20 years ago. Also Voltron was more successful in the States than Go-Lion was in Japan. So they must've done something right.